The Year in News: Part 1

Some 3,632-odd news stories graced these pages in 2007. Perhaps you missed a few? Whether it's news to you or just a friendly reminder, we once again bring you the Year in News, a two-day roundup of the triumphs and tragedies, highlights and low points, and all the best WTF, OMG, and NSFW moments that made music in 2007 that much more interesting. (Today covers January through June. Tune in tomorrow for Part 2, which covers July through December.)

If one of your loyal Pitchfork newsies had to drop a half-eaten lunchtime burrito, abort a game of office foosball, and stop singing along to "Lip Gloss" to write it, chances are you'll find it here.

JANUARY

PATTI SMITH, R.E.M., RONETTES INDUCTED INTO ROCK HALL

Once a year, every year, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opens its illustrious doors to but a handful of gifted music-makers.
In January 2007 it named
R.E.M., Patti Smith, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, the Ronettes, and Van Halen as its latest inductees, and welcomed them in during a star-studded March gala in New York City. Finally, these acts will get the recognition they deserve.

LADY SOVEREIGN VS. JELLY DONUT

Don't let the silly name and the, um, donut costume fool you: the San Francisco-based MC calling himself Jelly Donut is an irritant to be reckoned with.

Lady Sovereign
found this out the hard way
during a January 8 show at San Fran's Mezzanine. Jelly brought a chant-happy posse and a bunch of flyers to the gig and demanded a rap battle. Sov flatly refused and had Jelly ejected-- but not before spitting at and pouring Red Bull on him.

Jazz icon Alice Coltrane passed away
from respiratory failure on January 12. She was 69. The pianist/harpist/organist and wife to John Coltrane played alongside many of the jazz greats and released a number of highly regarded albums before retiring in 1978. (She returned to music in the early 2000s.)

"Her music was concerned with the big questions: birth, death, meaning, purpose, the nature of the cosmos," wrote Pitchfork's Mark Richardson in a
tribute piece
. "You got the sense that music was for her foremost a tool for uncovering and expressing universal truths."

The pair were charged with racketeering, a felony, and released the following day on bond. Oh, and the folks responsible for helping set up the raid? Only the most egregious organization known to musician-kind, the RIAA, whose budget no doubt includes at least a few dollars made off CD sales from artists given a boost by Drama's mixtapes. Around here we call that "irony."

Drama closed out the year by issuing
Gangsta Grillz: The Album
, his first "proper" release.

Much to the delight of middle-aged suburbanites everywhere, the Police-- the Sting-led trio with a penchant for penning hits-- proved the rumors true by
announcing plans to reunite
, first for a Grammy Awards performance and later for a
blockbuster tour
.